Judge who told new citizens to move if they don't like Trump as president will retire in 2017

Judge John Primomo, who has long presided over naturalization ceremonies, reportedly told new citizens last week that if they don't like Donald Trump as president, they should leave the U.S.

Photo: TOM REEL, Staff

SAN ANTONIO -- U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo, under intense criticism for telling new U.S. citizens he swore in last week that they "need to go to another country" if they did not like Donald Trump becoming president, told his bosses Tuesday he will retire next year.

He sent a one-page letter to the U.S. district judges in San Antonio and copied administrators of the federal judiciary, including at the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. That court runs a panel that will review a complaint by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund about his speech.

Primomo's letter did not mention the controversy that erupted when KENS TV aired portions of his talk at a naturalization ceremony, in which he criticized some of the nationwide protests against Trump's victory and athletes who kneel during the national anthem to protest police killings of African Americans.

Primomo has been an enthusiastic and prolific conductor of naturalization ceremonies in the decades he has served on the federal bench - he has sworn in more than 100,000 new citizens since 1989, even going to people's deathbeds to administer the oath.

He has said his remarks at Thursday's ceremony at the Institute of Texan Cultures were taken out of context, that he did not even vote for Trump himself and was trying to say that Americans need to respect the office of the president, no matter who occupies it.

The speech drew brickbats from many quarters, including the American Civil Liberties Union, but also applause from conservative websites. Primomo continued to receive "hate calls" Tuesday at the federal courthouse, though others offered support.

"A federal judge presiding over a citizenship ceremony has a duty to celebrate American values, not to scold new Americans on how they should or shouldn't exercise their inalienable rights," the ACLU of Texas said in a statement Tuesday. "Many of those Judge Primomo was addressing had fled countries where criticizing or protesting the government can lead to imprisonment or worse. Imagine how that must have felt, in their first moments as American citizens, to be told they wouldn't be welcomed if they failed to embrace Judge Primomo's very limited version of the First Amendment."

The six U.S. district judges here, who have repeatedly reappointed Primomo to eight-year terms, received the MALDEF complaint on Tuesday, a day after they suspended him from conducting further naturalization ceremonies. He will continue to make bond decisions and hold other pre-trial hearings, until his retirement next Sept. 23, after he turns 65, midway through his current term.

The complaint referenced the publicized controversy and asked the judges to refer it to the National Judicial Conference to determine whether Primomo violated the code of conduct governing federal judges. If he did, he should be immediately terminated, it stated, calling his comments "disgraceful" and "highly unusual and inappropriate."

"Regardless of the spirit in which Judge Primomo allegedly made these statements, they are easily construed not only as an endorsement of a political organization or candidate, but also an admonishment against exercising the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment," MALDEF's letter said.

The MALDEF letter also said Primomo knows that established law guarantees all Americans the right to express their political views, even by offending national symbols like the national anthem and the U.S. flag.

"Judge Primomo's comments are also precisely the sort of statements that undermine public confidence in our independent judiciary and threaten our system of checks and balances," MALDEF's complaint said. "Furthermore, telling immigrants to 'go to another country' has particularly harmful undertones in the Latino community where epithets such as 'go back to Mexico' are often used in the political context to convey prejudice and send a message that Latinos are unwelcome or unwanted."

The district judges forwarded the complaint to the Judicial Council of the 5th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over federal courts in Texas. But MALDEF was satisfied by Primomo's suspension from further naturalization ceremonies, said Marisa Bono, the organization's southwest regional counsel. It had already submitted the complaint before it learned about it, she said.

"We are very gratified how quickly the court moved to address the community concern and we think this was a fair outcome," Bono said, before Primomo told his bosses he was retiring. "We feel that's a satisfactory result, and made us very confident in our judiciary in addressing it."

During a break in his court hearings Tuesday, Primomo declined comment, except to say he was not a Democrat nor Republican, but was "just trying to say something nice and it didn't turn out that way."